Colorado Fly Fishing Guide Academy!

A while back I ran into Jon Easdon while picking up some goodies in the Covey and he let me know of a Guide School that the Covey was organizing. He asked if I would be interested and it was a no brainer. Absolutely!

Becoming a Colorado Fly Fishing Guide, especially for Angler's Covey has been a dream of mine since I was 12. Most of my Christmas lists around that time had nothing but gear from Angler's Covey. Christmas mornings consisted of lining up reels and casting (badly) in the backyard no matter what the weather was like.

Twenty some odd years later and this dream is very close to becoming a reality! Last week blew any expectations of a guide school that I had totally out of the water. I have to admit I was very nervous going into it. I had doubts if I had what it takes to guide along side some of the best guides in Colorado.

Enter Robert Younghanz and Neil Luehring. I've known Robert for a while and have taken one of his entomology classes. I knew Robert's teaching style going in and I knew we'd have a lot of fun during the week. I met Neil on the first evening of class and was immediately comfortable talking with him. He has a very calm teaching style and has a knack for explaining things that really connect the dots. Neil and Robert worked really well together.

What did I learn???? Where do I start... I can tell you that there is a huge difference between being a good fly fisher and teaching someone to fly fish. There are also a lot of other things you need to consider as far as the business aspect of guiding is concerned. We covered it all. From setting up an LLC to social media to safety and gear requirements. We heard from guides with 30 years experience and guides with 3 years experience. We learned about photography and things to keep in mind when guiding female clients. Flies, casting techniques, trip preparation, customer service, etc, etc... It was a TON of info.

I have GOT to FISH!

We hit Pueblo and Deckers on Saturday and got a good dose of entomology from Robert. We teamed up and did some role playing on the river guiding our fellow students. This was a really good way to work some kinks out before jumping in with a real client.

I'm pretty sure Robert and Neil knew we were chomping at the bit to wet a line after a week of talking fishing and a day of being on the river. They cut us loose at the end of the day for an hour of fishing and it was like the running of the bulls when we turned for the water! Robert mentioned a nice run that he liked just upstream and we were off. I think he did that on purpose :) My new buddy Bob took about three steps to the river and immediately started schooling us. Age errr.... I mean experience sure does pay off :) Love ya Bob!

By this time everyone knew each other pretty well and I have to say that it felt like a group of old fishing buddies. I was totally blown away by how awesome our group was. I'd go fishing with these guys any day. No egos or grandstanding. Everyone was very cool and we had a great time. So glad to make what I know are going to be some life long friends.

Lunch is served!

Before I knew it Sunday was upon us. I couldn't believe it. It was Saturday night around 9PM and I had to tie flies, get a lunch together, and pack for the next morning where we would be GUIDING A CLIENT!!!! What!!!!!???? So this is what being a guide is like :)

I think we were all nervous but I was a lot less nervous than I was before going through this class. I had a game plan. I knew how to approach different situations and how to describe certain techniques. I had a toolbox to use. This really did boost my confidence and we all know what confidence does when you're fishing. Same thing with guiding. Not being cocky but being confident. Big difference.

On top of the world

I met Eric riverside and we were off! Eric had never cast a fly rod before but was a very quick learner. He went from never casting to landing a trout in about an hour! His first ever trout on a fly rod. I can't tell you what that moment felt like. I'm not sure who was happier!

I can't imagine working towards this feeling as a way of living. It's a lot of hard work (yes it's not a day of fishing on the river). Reminds me of a Tom Petty lyric, "I don't mind workin but I'm scared to suffer". Guiding is  hard work. But good work with an absolutely HUGE payoff. Not talking about money. Seeing Eric learn to cast, control his line, set the hook, fight and land a fish was surreal. I've always known the tug is the drug but teaching someone else to find that kind of joy on the river is just as potent. I look forward to many years of chasing that moment down again and again.

Fun Weekend at the East Portal

Mike, Ben, and I had an awesome two and a half days on the Gunnison last weekend. We finally planned a camping trip with Mike who has a pop-up camper. Talk about camping in style. Can sleep six, has a heater, fridge, stove, lights.... We must be living right! Still took a day for me to figure out that I could put my waders on in the camper instead of doing a balancing act on my raincoat though.....

We took off early Friday and when we pulled in we had our choice of camping spot. I think there was only one other car in the parking lot. Sweet! First thing I noticed is that they fixed the spillway that was damaged last summer. I preferred fishing that spot before it was damaged so it was good to see it fixed.

Mike backed the camper in to our chosen space like a boss and we got to setting things up. Everything went off without a hitch, minus having to make a foil fuse for our creature comforts, and we were fishing in an hour.

We started off at the spillway and it took us a bit to figure out what was going on. I had stoneflys on my brain and even though it was later in the afternoon and only mid May, that's what I started throwing. I think the trout laughed a little when they saw that. Wait till June and wake up early if you want to toss big bugs.

Ben and I did a quick seine and it was more than apparent what we should be throwing. Size 20-22 dark baetis nymphs and scuds! There were a TON of dark (almost black) beatis nymphs and a few large dark olive scuds in each sample. Time to re-rig. That's what you get for assuming you'll show up and start slaying them in the middle of the afternoon on huge stone patterns! Hey, stranger things have happened......

At about that time I started noticing BWOs coming off. This was going to be good. We switched to pheasant tails and RS2s and started hooking up pretty quickly. We landed some nice bows but the action switched off pretty quickly. It did seem that the concentration of fish was not as heavy in this section as it had been on previous trips. Or should I say concentration of fish we could catch. We decided to call it an evening.

We got back to our camp site and Ben started cooking up some chicken that he had marinating. It was good. Damn good! We really went all out on food this trip. First camping trip of the season, first time taking Mike's camper out. We did it up right. So much so that Mike had to take a few pics! Chicken, steak, bacon, eggs, cowboy crepes.... And I think we may have actually LOST weight on this trip. Not the easiest river to wade.

We decided that we would head downstream in the morning to see what we could find. I've been to the East Portal a handful of times and we had always fished the spillway up. We've always done well so we didn't really have a reason to go downstream but we thought we might be able to find some good water to fish so we decided to go exploring.

Downstream is way better.... Just a ton of good water. It was fairly crowded though so we had to pass up a lot of it. I decided to just walk a while and get past the bulk of the crowd. I'm glad I did because when I finally stopped it was on one of the prettiest sections of river I've fished. I could stand in one spot and hit three different runs. It wasn't just a pretty spot either. It was chalk full of brick red 16-20" rainbows that were willing to hit a fly hard. No subtle takes for the next two hours.

These fish were amazing. Absolutley beautiful rainbows and browns that hit like a freight train and fought just as hard. One of the runs I was fishing from my sandbar perch was the inside seam of the main river channel. When fish would hit in this area they would take a quick turn to the current and torpedo downstream. Line peelers for sure. I kept thinking, "get your arses down here Mike and Ben"! For the next hour or so I had this little slice of
heaven all to myself. I must have landed a dozen fish by the time Mike made it down.

I had been watching a very large brown rising at the head of the pool I was fishing. He was out of reach from where I was standing and I didn't want to move so I just watched him steadily rise to BWOs... Mike FINALLY made it and I knew he had a dry fly rig so I pointed out where I had seen the rises. Mike took one cast and got a bite! I think it surprised him a little and he set a little too fast. He didn't make the same mistake when the brown rose again on his second cast! Unreal.... It wasn't to be though and the weight of the first few head shakes snapped the line.

The disappointment didn't last long though. I gave Mike a few RS2s and he was dialed in quick. He landed some absolutely stunning rainbows over the next hour or so. Some of the best fishing in recent memory.

We had to walk away from catching fish...... Ughhh.... Ben hadn't made it down and we hadn't eaten lunch. We figured it was at least noon so we walked away and decided to go find Ben. He was upstream a ways and had spend the morning catching some nice fish on dry flies. We made it back to camp and started getting lunch together. I asked if anyone had the time and Ben looked down at his watch in amazement. Four PM!!! LOL.... Time traveling on the river. We would have to treat our shock with a huge steaks.

We headed downstream on our final morning and hit the same spot we had found the previous day only from the other side. Unfortunately it wasn't nearly as good from this side so we worked our way back upstream. Mike was soon dialed in and hooking up on RS2s. Ben was killing it on dries just upstream from Mike. I hooked a few but was really just enjoying being in such a beautiful place watching my buddies land river gems.

It was a great weekend and I wish I could do it over again. Time absolutely flew by. Our only worries were how long to leave the baked potatoes on the fire and how many RS2s we had left. Small first world problems. So lucky to have the opportunity to decompress in the mountains of Colorado. It's an addiction but a good one. Already looking forward to our next trip to this amazing canyon.

Great Morning TOUGH Afternoon on the Ark

Ben and I headed back up towards Cotapaxi to try to get in some more dry fly action this weekend on the Ark. Plan was good, reality was not so good.

The morning started out very similar to last weekend with stone fly imitations getting hit REALLY hard till about 10:00 AM. One thing that was different though was the water clarity. The water was pretty dirty below Cotapaxi and only marginally clearer up towards Salida. I think that slowed down the nymphing in the morning some but we still managed to get fish in the net pretty regularly. This bow hit a flashback two tone stone (hares ear with peacock Ice Dub thorax really) on my first cast. One of the prettier bows I've caught in this stretch.

We took a break around 1-1:30 and decided to get our dry fly rigs. Around this time a storm started blowing in. Wind picked up and blew a lot of people of the river. Between the dirty water and the front moving in things just stopped all together. It was a very tough afternoon. I finally hooked a brown on a streamer after about three to four hours without a hit. Dirty water + front in this case = humbling afternoon :-) But as they say, just being out on the water beats most anything else.

Caddis on the Ark

Decided to go find some hatching caddis on the Ark this weekend. I've been hearing a lot about how good the fishing has been so I decided to go check it out for myself.

I headed up early Sat morning and started fishing about ten miles downstream from Cotapaxi. As soon as I stepped out of the jeep I saw caddis flying around. Good sign! I didn't however see anything rising when I started fishing. I decided to start with my nymph rig which consisted of a Tungstone and a caddis larva. I was pleasantly surprised when I started hooking up on the stonefly. I didn't think I was on the river early enough but they were definitely favoring the stone fly over the caddis until about 10:00 AM. Trout were ON the bottom so I had to add weight a few times before I started hooking up.   

Mike and Ben met me around 2:00 and we had great dry fly action till about 3:30 - 4. What a blast! We had feisty browns chasing down our caddis as they swung at the end of the drift. Pretty hard to keep your fly in front of them long enough to get an eat. Once I started waiting till I felt a tug I started hooking up no problem. So fun seeing fish chase down your fly. The fish weren't huge but they had plenty of energy and none of them came in without a fight. Mike was on FIRE for about fifteen minutes. It was almost every other cast!

After an hour and a half of really fun fishing someone flipped the switch and the top water action was over. I wish it lasted longer but we enjoyed it while it lasted. We headed down and fished through Canyon City on the way out and picked up a few little ones but didn't hit the heavy caddis like we had upstream. The money dry pattern was a size 18 Puterbaugh Caddis. Love this fly. Easy to tie, durable, and catches fish.

Always fun hitting the Ark this time of year. There were a lot of people out but with one hundred and two miles of gold medal water we were able to find nice runs without a problem.

Ben's Trip to La Paz Mexico

Trout to Rooster Fish – lessons 1-5

The gorgeous launch site

For most of us readers on Jamie’s Journal we are trout focused with dreams of huge fish on a fly rod. Saltwater fly-fishing offers just that. Here is my story of my attempt at big Rooster Fish in the Sea of Cortez, La Pax Mexico

It all started a couple years ago at the Denver ISE (International Sportsman Expo) when Jamie and I were working with Richard Johnson’s Rainbow Mountain Trout booth. I noticed Tailhunter International’s set up (http://tailhunter-international.com ) located right behind ours, so I stopped by and chatted with Jonathan and Jill, a very nice couple indeed.  In 2015’s ISE I let them know I may be headed down and after things fell into place I booked a trip. Since it was my anniversary/vacation I only went out for 1 day, verse the suggested 3 days Jonathan and Jill recommended.   My wife is very cool with my fishing addiction, but I am also smart and didn’t push it to 3 days. We were spending our vacation about 70 miles from La Paz. This was a “test trip” for Jamie and the rest of the group.

We arrived into La Paz on Thursday April 15h – had a GREAT meal at Jonathan’s establishment call the Tailhunter Restaurant (http://tailhunter.mx ). Yes he is a busy dude with the Paga fleet and restaurant to manage. This doesn’t slow him down a bit, he treated everyone with warmth and kindness rarely found these days.  If in La Paz, it is a must stop.

On to the fishing.

Tailhunter International runs a big fleet of 30 or so Paga’s, and will tailor to your wants, fly or traditional, Tuna & Dorado or Rooster and Jacks and Bonitas, guess which I chose? I was a little early in the fly season, but OF COURSE I had to temp the fly gods and go after Roosters. We left at 5:45 AM for about an hour drive and hit the water about 7-7:15 or so.

At this point all I could do was smile, sit back and enjoy the sites and expectations of the day ahead. I noticed a few of the guys wearing the sea sick patch, all I had was Dramamine, so I figured one tablet should be enough to off set any issues. After picking up bait off we went. First stop was a chance at Jacks and Bontias. Moncho (my awesome guide) stopped by what looked like every other place on the open water and started to chum the water with live sardines, really no other way to get fish near the boat. He has been guiding for 20 years, no need for GPS with these guys. I chose a blue and while 0/2 Clouser and started chucking my freshly spun up 10 wt…and the lessons started.

The water is clear blue, and these are fast, really fast swimmers, so once the sardines hit the water the game fish (who knows which before you hook them) start to boil the surface. Blind cast into the mess and start stripping. First lesson, double hauling is your friend, and though I can double haul, slinging a 10wt is a totally different chore than a 5 wt. I did “practice” a bit before I headed down to Mexico, but there is never enough practice before hand.

It took less than 5 min for my first ferocious take. It shocked me and I did not get a hook set. OK, game on…..the next take, I stuck it.. The first fish of the day @ 6-7 min or so, “this is going to be rad!” he took about a 3 second run and I was in my backing. I fought it for 5-6 min and landed a small Bonita. WTF, that fight could not have been over a small 5-7 lbs fish, it then stuck me, oh crap what happens if. . . .

Then things went south. On the next Bonita, he ran just like the last one but when the fly line to backing knot was ripping through the
eyelets I felt a pop and POOF everything was gone. What in the hell happened. I look at my reel (Lamson Guru 4.0 – more than enough for these fish) and the pig tailed spiraled backing told me that it pulled the knot. Say goodbye to a $80 fly line, so if you catch a Bonita with a light blue RIO line, that would be mine. All I could do was laugh. I did bring an 8wt a “back up” rig, so I strung that up and went back at it. Lesson 2 – keep your drag loose, I had the 10 wt set up with a tighter drag and could have been the cause of the breakage. I was running 14lb fluorocarbon on this rig vs 18lb on the 10wt.

I hooked another Bonita and fought it for about 20 min, the rod was pretty maxed out, with the butt section horizontal and the tip was in the water for most of the fight. I was very concerned on breaking the rod. My decision was to make a bastard set up, 8 wt line on my 10wt rod, at least I would have a stronger rod for fighting. Lesson 3, this really doesn’t work too well, you can go up and down one wt but two wts is really hard. Think of casting a thread using a broomstick, yeah you get it.  At this point I was feeling a little sick, although the water was fairly calm, my stomach was not happy, so I popped one more Dramamine that seemed to do the trick.

Moncho said “Rooster time” it was 9:30 or so, and off we went. Picked up more sardines, and moved close to the shore for the prize fish. Moncho started chumming and WHOA, those are crazy aggressive fish. They EXPLODE on the top water. So I started to cast my ass off, the lack of a decent double haul impaired my accuracy and the “9wt” rod matrix did not help the situation.  Lesson 4, stripping has a new definition folks, you literally can not strip fast enough. Make sure you are comfortable tucking the rod under the arm and two hand stripping, which I am not. I had about 6-8 super fast takes but just could not strip set for my life. All the takes were on white and blue Clousers, and a white Closuers. These guys are rockets in the water, you can see their dorsal fins and about half of their back out of the water when they are feeding. The sea birds dive almost on top of them because they force the sardines to jump out of the water.

About 2 hours and hundreds of ugly casts, Moncho simply says “troll?”. Although I was determined to land a big rooster on a fly I gave in and took a break and we trolled. My arm was dying and I wanted to at least hook one of these beautiful fish. It took about 10 min of trolling and I hooked my fist of four 25+lbs or so Roosters. The first thing that hit me it would be a handful to land one on the bastard rod. No chance on the 8wt it would have been destroyed, the 10wt correctly configured would have been a blast, but a 11 or
12 is not overkill!

By this time it was about 2PM, and the Dramamine was really kicking in. Lesson 5, DON’T take Dramamine, it made me into the walking-dead-fisherman. I was fighting to stay awake on this AWESOME day. Moncho and I went between attempting with the bastard rod and trolling. Of course trolling was the most affective, I landed four nice Rooster. He said these were decent but they get 3X this size.

On the way back in, Moncho said, you want a baby Rooster, of course I did, I HAD to land one on a fly rod. After about 3 min, this cute little guy took my fly like he was a bad ass, 100% site fishing, you see them and cast. Really fun, think of 16” trout on crack!

We were on the water for 7-8 hours, but it felt like 2. When I was back on shore I was in la-la-land due to the Dramamine. We landed the Paga’s loaded up and headed back to La Paz. What a great day, even with my struggles.

I slept for the entire ride back to La Paz and looked drunk when Jonathan asked how we did.  He was concerned I did not have a good day, always focused on his clients. We headed to hotel and did a quick change and headed off to Todos Santos, the other side of the peninsula – about an hour drive. What I did not notice was that left my fly rods in the hotel bathroom. It was the next day before I even noticed, and the term “once in Mexico always in Mexico” came to mind. I called Jonathan, no luck no one turned them in. What a bonehead move, how could I have done THAT, the Dramamine was flowing pretty well I guess.

Jonathan was so concerned that he offered a $50 reward to the hotel staff (1/2 weeks pay for them) and guess what, they were turned in to the desk a couple days later. He did NOT have to do that, but has earned a life long customer for that simple action.

To summarize my lessons.
1)    KNOW how to double haul, practice practice practice
2)    Keep your drag looser than you want.
3)    Make sure your back up rigs are up to the task
4)    Stripping, you can’t strip fast enough
5)    Dramamine = zombie fishing adventures

I WILL be back down, and will land a nice Rooster on fly. This was still a GREAT day and would not change a thing, learning lessons the hard way is sometimes the best!

Who is in?????

Ben

Back To Landon School on the Dream

Ben and I have been so impressed on our previous trips with Landon on the Dream Stream that we now have a standing spring and fall trip. Our spring trip this year happened at the end of March and it was an absolute blast.

I'm not sure what else to say about these trips that I haven't already said. I've learned so much on the three trips we've done with Landon. It is an absolutely amazing feeling when you start picking out the "99 percenters" (fish that 99% of people don't see) by catching a hint of white or just something barely unnatural in the water and then relaxing your focus to get an idea of the outline of a fish.

I think the other thing that I've noticed is that Landon seems to remember exactly where we left off on our last trip and picks up right where we left off. He has a really good ability to remember where his clients are in different areas and jump right in where needed on each trip.

Maybe the last thing to mention is that I think it would be very hard to find someone that knows this stretch of river better. On every trip Landon has had a game plan before leaving the parking lot. These game plans take into account a lot of things such as what the weather was like the evening before, what the current and foretasted weather conditions are, how many cars are in the parking lot, where larger groups of anglers are headed, what fish (by name I think) have been seen and where, etc, etc.....

I recently picked up "101 Trout Tips", Landon's latest book, and it's interesting to read about some of the things I've learned from these trips on formulating a game plan. It really helps to learn a lesson on stream and then to reinforce that lesson with text or vice versa.  I think the more times you see, hear, or read something the more you understand about what the teacher is trying to get across. This really helps you to not just think you've learned something but to actually be able to apply what you learned in new situations. That, in my mind, is when you truly understand something.

On this particular trip we had a heavy does of fog in the morning. Landon had us walk downstream in order to get in position to intercept any lake fish that were using the fog as cover to move upstream. He knew that if the fog burned off into a bluebird day (which is exactly what happened) that the fish would settle in to the deeper runs. It was amazing to see this develop as the morning went on. As soon as the sun started to burn off the fog (as seen in the pictures) our flies started getting hammered! We were positioned in a deep bend run and it seemed like the fish knew they were going to settle in and were in a hurry to eat before the sun burned off all of their cover. This plan netted us the biggest fish of the day. Very cool.

Overdue Deckers Day

Took a quick trip up to Deckers with the gang. We had a beautiful day and there were plenty of people out enjoying it. Was tough finding open water above the bridge so we headed downstream to our normal "Plan B" spot. I set Alicia up in a run she has done well in on a few trips and she did well again! She's really picked up fly fishing and is a true natural. So much so that she caught the nicest fish of the trip (which she has done multiple times)! I thought it would bother me but it's actually really cool to see her doing well.

#18 Red Two Bit Hooker did the trick this day. Best rig was a San Juan or Egg followed by two bit. Love Deckers but it's been pretty crowded. I think I may have to start hiking into Cheesman Canyon again :)